SEATTLE -- The Yankees’ recent scuffles aren’t sounding strong alarm bells across the Tri-State area and the outer reaches of the pinstriped perimeter just yet, but it’s now safe to say that things seem just a hair off at the moment.

Take Wednesday afternoon’s 4-3 defeat to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park to close out their third consecutive series loss and second in a row to Seattle.

“We know we're going to be fine in the long run, but it gets more and more frustrating every day that we don't come out with a win,” catcher Kyle Higashioka said. “We're not satisfied with that. So this is the time of the season where you really need to pull together, because it’s a long year and it only gets tougher as it goes on.

“We’ve just got to dig a little deeper and get ready to go tomorrow.”

Actually, tomorrow, Thursday, is an off-day, but the point was salient. The Yankees will probably enjoy a rest day before they head into another challenging road series, this one in Boston.

In the meantime, they could decide to focus on some of the things to like about Wednesday, because there were a couple.

Starter Nestor Cortes was his usual nasty self, taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning before a Sam Haggerty solo home run gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead. Cortes finished with a quality start after going six-plus frames and giving up three runs on three hits while striking out 10.

Aaron Judge was his usual baseball-obliterating self, too. The AL MVP front-runner blasted his Majors-leading-by-a-mile 45th homer of the year in a three-run seventh that gave the Yankees a brief 3-1 lead and chased Mariners starter Robbie Ray, last year’s AL Cy Young Award winner.

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But the Yankees lately have been finding ways not to win games that they hardly ever lost in the early part of the season.

On Wednesday, the Yankees’ bullpen couldn’t protect Cortes’ lead and the bats couldn’t come through in the spots where they needed it the most.

Things were in cruise control for Cortes until the sixth inning, when, in the midst of a scoreless tie with one out, Higashioka called for a fastball away and Cortes pulled it middle-in. Haggerty swatted the 94 mph heater high off the foul pole in left field, getting the Mariners fans stirring.

“It just got into the zone where he crushes the ball,” Cortes said. “Just a mistake pitch.”

The Yankees rebounded after that, finally getting to Ray in the seventh. Isiah Kiner-Falefa worked a one-out walk -- Ray’s fifth of the game -- and Higashioka followed with a two-run homer to left-center for a 2-1 lead, and then, two batters later, Judge did his thing.

Reliever Penn Murfee threw a sweeping slider that broke over the middle of the plate, and Judge hammered it a Statcast-projected 412 feet at 105.2 mph off the bat for No. 45 and RBI No. 99.

When asked yet again how he can describe the type of player Judge is and the type of season he’s having, Yankees manager Aaron Boone just shook his head and laughed.

“Yeah, I don't know,” Boone said. “I mean, he's awesome. He really is. I mean, it's a tough matchup right there with Murfee coming in, kind of a low [arm] slot, and he just stays on the slider and rides it out of here. So yeah, another great swing by him.”

If the Yankees need a reason not to panic, they can look at Judge’s stat line. Or they can look at their own record and see that they still have a 71-41 mark and lead the AL East by 10 games.

But there are areas that need cleanup, and on Wednesday, one was the bullpen, specifically Albert Abreu. He could not get the job done after Cortes departed in the seventh, allowing a two-run homer on a misplaced changeup to Carlos Santana that ended up being the deciding blow in the game.

On a normal day, Abreu might not have been used in that particular situation, but the Yankees’ bullpen was taxed after Tuesday’s 13-inning loss and Abreu was the answer.

“That's the pitch you want to execute there, that change,” Abreu said through an interpreter. “We're looking to go down and away … and it ended up being middle-low. He was able to connect, and unfortunately, it ended up costing us the game.”

After the game, the Yankees sounded confident that things would turn around soon, and Boone agreed while realizing that being in first place with one of the game’s best records puts a target on your back as the summer turns to fall.

“We tend to get everyone's best shot, and that's the way we want it,” Boone said. “We need to embrace that and run to that.

“We’ve got to turn it around here.”